Virginia Woolf and the study of nature / Christina Alt.

"Reflecting the modernist fascination with science, Virginia Woolf's representations of nature are informed by a wide-ranging interest in contemporary developments in the life sciences. Christina Alt analyses Woolf's responses to disciplines ranging from taxonomy and the new biology of the laboratory to ethology and ecology and illustrates how Woolf drew on the methods and objectives of the contemporary life sciences to describe her own literary experiments. Through the examination of Woolf's engagement with shifting approaches to the study of nature, this work covers new ground in Woolf studies and makes an important contribution to the understanding of modernist exchanges between literature and science"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record.

Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- Works by Virginia Woolf -- Work by Marie Carmichael (Stopes) -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 The natural history tradition -- Taxonomic natural history in the nineteenth century -- The popular practice of natural history -- Woolfs childhood encounter with natural history -- Chapter 2 The modern life sciences -- Darwinian controversies -- The rise of the new biology -- Protection and conservation -- The early protection movement -- The later protection movement -- The psychoanalytic interpretation of collection -- Twentieth-century developments -- Ethology -- Ecology -- Ecology as a science of control -- A co-operative ethic -- Woolfs observation of nature -- Chapter 3 8216;To pin through the body with a name: Virginia Woolf and the taxonomic tradition -- The origins of Woolfs response to taxonomic natural history -- Childhood and natural history in woolfs fiction -- Natural history and the Victorian age -- Collection -- Obsession, Possession, and Control in the voyage out -- Collection and Classification in jacobs room -- Identity formation in the waves -- Chapter 4 Laboratory coats and field-glasses: Virginia Woolf and the modern study of nature -- The new biology -- A room of ones own and the influence of Marie Stopes -- Woolf and the protection movement -- 8216;Miss Ormerod, applied entomology, and the protection movement -- Ethology -- The new naturalists -- The new naturalist in an old naturalist -- Ecology -- Chapter 5 Representing 8216;the manner of our seeing: Literary experimentation and scientific analogy -- Woolfs use of the analogies of collection and taxonomy -- Conceiving of an alternative -- Woolfs adoption of an alternative method -- Notes -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: The natural history tradition -- Chapter 2: The modern life sciences -- Chapter 3: 8216;To pin through the body with a name -- Chapter 4: Laboratory coats and field-glasses -- Chapter 5: Representing 8216;the manner of our seeing -- Bibliography -- Index.

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